Chapter 209: Chapter 216: Ice Cream

For a while, my gramma and I sat in complete silence. I thought about asking if she needed something, but I didn’t want to sound rude. Then the thought occurred to me that this was her house, and she very well might have just liked sitting in her garden after a big meal. It was very possible she wasn’t there for me at all… Which only made me second-guess myself more.

‘I should just leave, this is starting to feel awkward.’

“You know… Mara used to love these flows. She liked how pretty they looked, would even go around braiding them together and putting them in her hair, she got really good at it too.”

‘Not surprising, she is really good with hair, but don’t most little kids do stuff like that?’

She leaned over slightly and picked one from a shrub next to the bench. “Something tells me… You and her aren't very similar… But somehow this is still the first place you go to when something is bothering you.” She leaned back, lifting an ankle to her knee and spreading her arms across the beach behind me. “It’s funny in a way. Although, maybe it’s something you can only appreciate with age.”

“It’s called juxtaposition… The parallelisms we share only further highlight the differences… In a way it's ironic, that’s probably why you think it’s funny…” I slowly turned to see her confused expression and started to feel embarrassed again, but within the dragon's fire inside of me, it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as before. “Sorry, when I’m around new people I… I guess I don’t really know what I do, but I don’t act normal… Well, I probably never act normal, but I mean like normal for me, which I guess you wouldn’t know what is. So… I’ll stop talking now…” I slowly turned away again.

Suddenly I was sliding across the bench and being squished against her as she warped an arm around me, the rest of her posture remaining the same as she let out a soft but hearty laugh. “It’s not like you'd be the first weird kid to come out of this family or even your own. Do you think it’s normal for that brother of yours to only have one expression?”

I smirked. ‘So me and Lu really are the only ones that can break his poker face.’

“So, what’s on your mind then? Surely that wasn't it?”

I closed my eyes and leaned on her, not bothering to use my magic to break free, which is certainly what it would have taken. “Well my dad had me drink a fancy potion that gave me supper eyes but now there's a fragment of a dead dragon's soul trying to burn me alive from the inside out…” I didn’t bother looking up at her face. I had a feeling I knew what kind of expression she would have.

“Just eat some ice cream, that will cool down your insides and put the dragon in its place.”

‘She’s kidding right… Or, maybe she thinks I was? I’m surprised they even have ice cream here.’ I pushed myself away enough to get a good look at her and sure enough she wasn’t joking. Not only was she serious, but she actually had a bowl of ice cream and was eating out of it with a spoon. “How-”

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Before I could say another word the spoon ended up in my mouth with the sweet fruity flavor melting between my lips and shutting me up. “With it getting hotter it will be hard to get this pretty soon. Another trick that always managed to calm your mom's mind was sweets.” She winked before standing up and stretching her arms, placing the bowl in my lap. “When you're done with that come to find me out in the courtyard and we can take care of the problem for real.

“Yo-u me-an and huh?” I stopped talking, realizing my voice sounded funny, taking a moment to understand there was still a spoon in my mouth. By the time I took it out and swallowed she was gone. ‘Well… They’re certainly related… She actually thinks she can fix me…’

I looked down at the ice cream again and almost immediately started to drool. It wasn’t anything special to me in my past life, but it was more than a little surprising to find some, beyond that, it was flavored with the most delicious and juiciest fruits and topped with some kind of syrup that almost tasted like hazelnut mixed with chocolate. ‘Finally… A good surprise…’ I took another bite, enjoying it so much that my teeth froze, starting to hurt from how fast I was eating it. Oddly enough, it actually did cool down my body, the dragon's blood shuddering at the cold and finally letting my soul relax.

In no time I was done and awkwardly returned the bowl to my Grampa, who was washing the dishes with Airsidh. He gave another soft smile as I spent a moment staring at them, contemplating how weird it was, given they had servants, before slowly stepping away again to go and find my Gramma.

‘How does she even know about this kind of thing? Eating dragon hearts can’t be that common right?’

I walked out into the courtyard feeling a weird sense of deja vu after realizing it was identical to the one we used for sparing back home. ‘Are we going to fight then? I’ll have to be careful not to let my magic show through. It’s probably better to test how well I can really conceal it here anyway.’

“Ah, good, you’re here.” She took off her outer shirt revealing training clothes resembling mine, old, tattered, simple, and too small. She started casually performing a kata, moving from slow and smooth motions to quick movements that sent gusts of wind across the stone tiles and swept the dust away as she slid her feet across the ground. “There, now that it’s clean come here. Sit.” She said eagerly.

At first, I was too speechless to move, when I finally took a step though, and felt the familiar stone under my feet, it was like a rush of bad memories hit me all at once and I froze. “Uhm… Can you explain what we're doing first?” I muttered.

Crossing her legs she slowly sat down, resting her chin in her hand. “Well… Honestly, I don’t really know how it works so…”

“How what works… What are we doing?”

She sighed. “So you’re that type…” After a short pause, she placed her hands on her knees and sat up straight. “No… Less overly cautious, and more like, a scared little bear cub.”

“What’s wrong with that? Bear cubs are super cute...”

Her face softened as she patted the ground in front of her. “Come over here, you don’t have to be so tense, it won’t hurt.”

“You say that… But…” ‘It won’t hurt you I’m sure…’

She rolled her eyes with a short sigh. “Are you going to make me stand up again? You know how hard it is to move when you’re my age?”

“Sorry… It’s just that…”

“You have trust issues?”

“Well… Yeah… I mean pretty much.”

She sighed again. “OK, fine how about this? If it hurts, then… You can…” She looked around the courtyard. “No… You’re timid, and not really the violent type so that wouldn’t work. “How about this? If it hurts, I’ll get you more ice cream.”

As childish as it seemed, I could see in her eyes that she was being genuine. “Everyone deserves one chance… Right?” I muttered out loud. “Fine…”